Concept Unicorn puts a unique flip on Windows Phone

Nothing can stimulate your tech glands like some silky renders of a concept phone. Here’s one from a senior industrial designer at Alcatel Mobile. The device is unique, Concept Unicorn shows off a Windows Phone device with a vertical flip cover. Check out some of the renders and a little video of the device.

Concept Unicorn looks like a little side project from a senior designer with Alcatel. Jet Ong has some nice design work in his Behance portfolio, but it's this Windows Phone device that has us wishing.

The most interesting thing about this device is how it folds back like a reporters notepad and within that fold is the USB charging port. The back of the flip cover looks like it has a velvet like texture as well. I'm going to stretch my gadget bone and imagine it with a flexible spine like the Microsoft Arc mouse, it can hold its position no matter what angle you set it. Anyways, here are a few more pics, get the rest at the source link below.

Would this be a potential form factor any of you would try? Could be fun.

Me too! I've been using my corporate Lumia 822 as work & personal for about two months since I dropped my personal L900 for two stories in the air while running cabling. I haven't replace it because I was hoping MS would announce a device at MWC. I'm getting desparate and just might go ahead an purchase the L920 if I don't see something soon.

I don't think that will happen. Manufacturers are already fleeing RT and Surface isn't doing great either.
Example i don't think even with nokia cointrolling over 80% of WP market they wanna stay here for too long if WP sales and support from MS doesn't get better and MS starts to make it's own phones.
Android is now again profitable with LG, Sony and Samsung. manufacturers that just 3 years ago sold 1-2 million smartphones compared to Nokia's 24 million a quarter. There must be some discussion inside Nokia about relying to WP. Just like there seems to be with HTC.

I read microsoft indeed has a "homegrown" windows phone, but they arent going to do anything with it unless the Windows Phone eco-system starts to fail (Basically, theyd do what they did with surface; Create a device to show OEMs how its done and to spark interest in the platform, but not to necessarily steal the market). So unless Nokia jumps ship i highly doubt MS will release such a phone, but they have, at least, if rumors to be believed, considered a windows phone made directly by them.

ALSO: Surface isnt failing, and nor is RT. Remember: Rome wasnt built in a day, and nor is ecosystems for platforms. (People are so used to having their apps on devices that they forget this and forget Apple and Android bother were where WP8 and WinRT are today). And a hefty app ecosystem is whats plaguing RT atm (and somewhat WP8 as well.). The OS is great, but it lacks some core apps (and as far as twitter and youtube is concerned, restrictive API's {or lack thereof} make it hard to bring anything solid to the os, especially for free in Twitters case {remember the original Tweetro?}). People these days will skip an entire OS just because they dont get their instagram or whatever (no matter if there are equal alternatives or even better ones for the platform). As far as surface Pro, its all about miscategorization and double standards.The pro is:

A: Being considered a tablet form factor instead of a Tablet/Laptop convertible form factor (The Verge actually rated it as such)

B: Being criticized for battery life and size, when it is cheaper, smaller, and contains more equipment than a Macbook Air, to which the industry seems is fine (thus the double standards).

Another thing, last i checked, Nokia itself has said theyre still not going to consider Android and sticking to their guns with Windows Phone. Theyve put all their eggs in this basket (Developing markets excluded, where they use Asha devices).

Last thing: Sales of windows phone quadrupled last year. Yes, they havent dominated Android or iOS, but android took a good 2 - 3 years to get off the ground, and only now is it (or should i say Samsung) dominating the market.

tl;dr - Windows Phone has had a rough journey, and the path ahead is bumpy, but it has a bright future and is a great alternative. I mean, why else would some elements be found in apps on other platforms (Maluuba for example was on android about mid last year and only now is available on WP8, and its interface SCREAMS Metro/ModernUI), and why would the Lumia be talked about as a benchmark by people at the iPhone 5 event (as well as apple using a Lumia 900 as an example that not all phones have to look like iPhone in their case against samsung last year)???

While it looks cool and I like the idea of integrating the circutry in two parts, I'm not sure a phone that thin would actually be comfortable to hold. Plus it'd get caught in things.
Accessing the usb socket is a pest (although hopefully it'd have wireless charging so that'd be less of a problem than normal).
And finally there's no headphone socket...

Cool concept ut i'll pass. I mean that thing doesn't have camera button or volume rocker meaning i have to wake the phone every time i want to increase or decrease the volume and i can't launch my camera without waking the phone and i have to tap the screen every time i want to take a picture.

Wow, this is the reason why some people never prosper...lack of vision. How about if the volume is voice operated? Or if you feel it's necessary to touch the phone, how about when in sleep mode, you swipe screen up or down for volume control or perhaps (and this is my favorite ;-) ) you can clap once for volume up and twice for volume down. Lack of creativity from consumers afraid of changing and from marketing and sales departmets deciding what will sell more is what's keeping all this phones looking essentially the same...Just saying!

Imagine everyone doing all you just described, i mean the stuffs like clapping or using voice commands. Technology is meant to make life easier and not complicated. I don't like being disturbed and i also don't like disturbing people. All you just described seems like show off to me.

I wouldn't want to have to open my phone up to access the charging port everytime I needed to charge it. Plus I don't really see any added functionality into having that cover. It just moves the battery and camera inards from the base to the cover. Add a Dual screen perhaps? Extra battery in cover? With those items then this concept would be more attractive.

I don't see the point of this concept. The folding part doesnt really bring anything to the table appart from covering the screen which isnt needed when you have gorilla glass anyway. It just splits he phone in two and has a flimsy looking usb hole. If there were KB buttons on the flip part, maybe...

Also how anyoying is that flip going to be every time you make a call and you have to open & fold back or leave dangling. NIce idea but doesnt really work.

There is something screwy about the camera on this phone renders...the first picture depicts that the camera would be blocked by then when flipped over and then in the rest of the images it wouldn't be...guess the first image is a mistake lol.

Without needing any extra circuitry, a dumb accessory cover like this would be good enough to start. Nokia allow changing the back cover on some of their models, so 3rd party could build one that intergrate a flip cover like this.

This is an interesting form factor for sure. I particularly like the camera on the flip cover. When the cover is closed the lens remains protected along with the screen too. Despite the cover the device looks pretty slim and easy to hold.

So all in all it looks nice. However, my buying decision is based more on the specs rather than the looks. So this form factor coming in a flagship phone woudl entice me.